Mission & Justice

Imre Salusinszky; 6/3/10

Still licking his wounds over his narrow defeat by Kristina Keneally in Labor’s leadership struggle last year, NSW Environment Minister Frank Sartor spent some of his summer holidays pondering a vast report by the state’s Natural Resources Commission. It covered the river red gum forests of southwest NSW, and dealt, not just with the majestic trees the forests contain but the communities and industries they sustain. One table, in particular, buried in an appendix, caught Sartor’s eye. It described educational attainment in the Riverina region of NSW and revealed that in none of the seven largest towns in the area had more than 15 per cent of residents achieved a post-school qualification, compared with more than 50 per cent among the general population. Sartor’s recognition of the vulnerability of workers and livelihoods in towns such as Deniliquin, Balranald and Mathoura shaped his long-awaited announcement this week on the establishment of more than 107,000ha of protected forests in the Riverina.

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Peter Ker & TomArup; 30/10/09

Hopes have soared that huge amounts of water from Australia’s most famous cotton farm could return to the Murray Darling river system, after administrators were appointed to handle the affairs of Queensland’s Cubbie Station. After months of trying to sell the huge station and its water entitlement to governments and agricultural businesses, Cubbie chairman Keith De Lacy said the company would be handed to administrators today. ”In the end it was drought that beat us,” he said. ”We have only had one good season in the last five.” When full, Cubbie holds a mammoth 530 billion litres of water; by comparison, Melbourne’s massive Thomson dam yesterday was holding 219 billion litres.

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Asa Wahlquist; 24/11/09

The river red gum, named for its love of rivers and its beautiful deep red timber, is Australia’s most widely grown eucalypt. A huge tree with smooth, pale, opaline bark, and spreading limbs bearing thousands of fine leaves, it reaches its most magnificent form along the Murray and its connected rivers. The hard, termite-resistant wood was embraced by early settlers. It is still used for wharves and railway sleepers, for buildings, fine furniture, fences and for firewood. But the future of the red gum timber industry is uncertain, with conservation and business interests competing. The Victorian government recently shut down most of that state’s red gum industry. In NSW, the Natural Resources Commission is assessing the forests. The NSW government will then work out a forest agreement that will have both “conservation outcomes” and “a sustainable future for the forests, the forestry industry and local communities”.

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